Where have all the bullets gone_ - Spike Milligan [78]
ISCHIA
Ischia
March 1946. Our cleaning ladies consisted of pretty young Italian things, all on the lookout for potential husbands to take them to Inghilterra. Bornheim and I are pursued by two Marias. (All cleaners in twos are called Marias in Italy.) My Maria I used for laundry, sock repairs and groping.
We decided to take the girls to Ischia as a repayment for squeezing them. When we told them, they shrieked with excitement. No, they’d never been out of Napoli, was there somewhere else? They’d certainly never been to Ischia.
On the Sunday, they turned up carrying raffia baskets full of home-cooked Neapolitan goodies. The ferry was crammed, the noise of their chattering drowning out the engines. Forty minutes and we are there; I try my luck and take us to the Colonel Startling Grope Villa of yore.
Yes, the manservant remembers me of yore — Can we use the private beach? Er — yes. The ‘yes’ is good, the ‘er’ is worrying. We disport ourselves and are soon immersed in the sparkling waters. The girls are delirious. Maria I, who is mine, I had only seen in her scruffy working clothes, but now, in her black one-piece bathing costume she is very very dishy and ready to be squongled, and it can’t be long now. The girls open the ‘hamper’. In half an hour we put on a stone and sink like one. Oh, Neapolitan cooking! We must see the Grotto Azura, says a plying prying boatman. We argue the price and then he rows us to the enchanted hole in the cliff. We enter with our heads ducked and lo, a wonderous luminescent cavern, flickering with diaphanous sunshine on the cavern wall; by a trick of the light we appear to be floating on air. I dive over the side and give an underwater cabaret, in which I look as if I am suspended in air under the boat. It’s all wondrous, the girls squeal with delight that echoes round the cavern. Out again into the white sunlight and back to the beach. On dark winter nights I recall that day — the clock should have stopped there. Our ‘yes’ has run out and the ‘er’ I was worried about is operating. Er — would we leave now as the owner is returning from Naples where he has been selling packets of sawdust.
We caught the last ferry as twilight fell across the Bay of Naples; pimples of light are starting to appear on the shore. A thousand shouts as we draw to the quay, brown hands grasp the ropes and affix them to rusting bollards. We hire an ancient Fiat taxi that looks like a grave on wheels. It chugs and rattles its way up the slopes of the Vomero. “Qui, qui, ferma qui,” shout the girls. In the dark there’s a brief kissing. We are waving the girls goodbye, when Kerash!! from nowhere a drunk appears and punches through the taxi window.
“Attenzione,” shouts the driver. “Coltello.” (Look out he’s got a knife.) We leap out and set off hot foot. He is shouting something in Italian that sounds like ‘My mother keeps legless goats’ that can’t be right. Why are we running away from a man whose mother keeps legless goats? Cowards all!
I suddenly stop, turn, thrust my hand inside my battledress pocket and whip out an imaginary pistol.
“Attenzione!” I shout. “Pistole!” He stops in his tracks and runs away. He could have sung ‘Lae thar piss tub dawn bab’ but didn’t. Very good Milligan. The day ended with a pointed finger. It wasn’t the end of a perfect day, but it was an end. “Who the fuck was he?” said Bornheim, much much further down the hill.
Civilain Status
The Central Pool of Artists is changed to The Combined Services Entertainment. Why? I suppose it’s the result of a ‘meeting’. In its wake we, the Bill Hall Trio, are being offered officer status and wages if, when we are demobbed, we sign with the CSE for six months. Hedonists, we all say yes. Officer status? Cor Blimey! All the bloody